The Joining
by co-to-nuts
Summary: Sequel to Elfangor's Dimension. The Animorphs and Agents go through a year of missions, Yeerks, and complications; but this is just preperation for what's to come...REVISED
1. Prologue

**Things have worked out nicely.**

**Just the way I planned.**

**The Agents and the Animorphs have met, and joined forces.**

**This strengthens not only themselves, but myself as well. How, you ask? It will be explained in due time.**

**But now, I have a challenge for them.**

**Can they withstand the Yeerk attacks by working together, or will it push them apart?**

**Oh, there will be problems. But they will have to work them out by themselves, for I cannot interfere.**

**There will be plenty of mishaps, plenty of failures and screw ups, but the true challenge is this:**

**Can they remain a group? Can they stay together as one team? Or will they be divided, as Crayak has predicted.**

**Only time will tell.**

**But for now, they can handle themselves.**

**After all, I am on their side.**

**And as I said before, I have chosen them all, all fourteen of them, to be my warriors.**

**Why?**

**As I said before, it will be explained in due time.**

**I have big plans for this group. For these young human beings.**

**Big plans, indeed.**

**But they too, will be explained, in due time. When the time is right.**

**But for now, I must go, with a few simple words:**

**There is hope. For with this group, Alex, Alyssa, Audrey, Aximili, Cady, Carman, Cassie, David, Jake, Josh, Katherine, Marco, Rachel, and Tobias, comes Earth's salvation, as well as the other planets whom the Yeerks might control.**

**With this group comes peace.**

**With this group comes complete destruction for the Yeerks.**

**With this group comes life anew for the Controllers, the beings that the Yeerks have controlled for so long.**

**As I said before.**

**With this group of fourteen humans comes the galaxy's salvation.**

**Believe it or not.**

**It is the truth. **


	2. My Name Is Jake

War stories.

There are a lot of them.

From World War II, to the Spanish-American war, to the Civil War, to the Revolutionary war...the list goes on and on.

Not only do we gain or lose what we're fighting for, but there are things we learn in wars.

Such as 'you may start out fighting the war for your country, but end up fighting for the man beside you in the bunker' that one is true.

And 'War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing'.

Wrong.

Not that war is a good thing, but sometimes, it's necessary.

War is what you do when the south refuses to let the slaves go free, war is the next option when no matter how many things you give up, Great Britan still won't give you freedom, war is what happens when Pearl Harbor is bombed, war is what happens when someone refuses to negociate any options for total peace.

War is what happens when someone seizes your home.

Our war?

The war that's happening right now?

Right under your nose?

We're not just fighting for our country's freedom, we're fighting for the freedom of the whole world.

And if we defeat the enemy?

Destroy them completely?

Then we will have saved the whole universe.

That's right, the universe.

A lot's at stake, but like I said before, sometimes it's the people next to you that make you realize a lot of things.

Those people in that bunker next to you?

There all the family you've got.

And what's more?

You'd better keep them safe, because listening to other people, instead of making the decisions on your own, helps.

It helps not only your war effort, but your sanity.

That's a lesson I learned the hard way.

But hey, no great discoveries are found the easy way.

For instance, to you, operating a microwave without an instruction manual is easy.

But it would be hard for one of the first people to buy a microwave.

So in the end, someone has to learn the hard way, to give everyone else the easy way.

Jesus, for example.

See, he could have just said 'there, you're forgiven', the easy way.

But instead he died, and that gave you an even greater forgiveness.

Yet it was the hard way.

The one problem with this philosophy?

The person learning the hard way, always gets hurt.

Physically, mentally, emotionally, those are the main three types of pain, it's usually one or all of those, but still, any type of pain.

And one of the most difficult decisions in life, is deciding who's going to learn the hard way.

For instance, forcing people to do things that may or may not hurt them.

Saying things you don't mean so the mission will go well and you won't get distracted.

Launching people you care about into long, hard, battles with impossible odds, with a large chance they might not come back home to their families.

Lying to cover up your true identity as a soldier.

And the hardest, watching people die because of you.

War contains a lot of elements.

Relief at the end, but that lingering pain that comes from the horrors you've seen.

Nightmares, having to wake up and go through your day, knowing someone that was once a part of your life is never coming back.

That's what I went through.

That's what we all went through.

But somehow, it ended up all right.

It's weird, that all these decisions, end up with everything going as planned, no one getting hurt.

Except us.

That's what we do.

We fight a war.

And those people not part of the war?

Who somehow end up standing between the enemy and us?

We take the heat for them.

Bet after all this, you're wondering who we are.

You want to know a little about us, what we've done, and most importantly, you're just itching to know who we fight.

But I've got to warn you, this enemy, this horrific, nasty, and utterly evil enemy, isn't you're normal enemy.

And well, we're not your normal teenagers.

And me?

Well, in this story, there's only one way to introduce yourself.

We are the Animorphs.

And my name is Jake.


	3. Rachel

**Faith: (slides in dramatically) We're back!**

**Star: (waves paper around) And we brought revisions!**

**Faith: Yup. We decided that trying to do book 25 was a bad idea.**

**Star: So we're starting over again!**

**Faith: (nods) Now, onto business: We do not and never will own Animorphs or anything in the universe. (sighs in relief) That's over with.**

** Both: ENJOY THE CHAPPIE!  
**

**Rachel:**

"You're _sure_? You actually_ want_ to go live with _three_ guys? And not just _any_ three guys. Tobias, Ax, and _David_." I said.

We were in Carman's room, surprising considering it had been two months since they joined us and we'd had a meeting at everyone's house except Carman's

Heck, we weren't even in a meeting. It was just us girls. Carman was packing to go live in Ax's scoop, and we were - to Carman's protest, she didn't want us here, for some odd reason - trying to change her mind about it.

For the past two months we'd been going through all the normal Animorph stuff except this time we had twice as many people.

Which helped _a lot_.

"She's got a point. I mean, you've got a _room_ here. With them you've got...well, let me put it this way: you're sharing a room with Tobias, Ax, and _David_." Kat said.

"Why is the emphasis always on _my_ boyfriend, huh? Why not Ax? I mean, he doesn't shut up! He doesn't understand _anything_ and, seriously, who watches _The Young and the Restless_?" Cady asked.

Audrey placed her hand on Cady's shoulder, shaking her head. "Cady, Cady, Cady. When will you_ ever_ learn? It's not our fault you chose to date the idiot."

Cady's expression was indescribable. You had to be there to truly appreciate how _hilarious_ it was.

Which was why all of us, except Carman and Cady, laughed. Cassie even threw in a little giggle.

"_Ax_ watches it. Just in case you haven't noticed, she's right." Carman said. She wasn't exactly happy today, and she definitely didn't sound like it. She threw a quick glance at the clock, it was 3:33. Our school was out for a teacher conference, Alyssa and Kat had gotten Chee to fill in for them at school, and Carman had just straight skipped.

The rest of us would have done the same if our school wasn't out today. We didn't get home until five am this morning from a mission gone wrong, so we all stayed in bed this morning.

"Dang it, I'm running late." Carman began to quickly stuff clothes into a suitcase. She looked worried about something, I'm talking super nervous.

(They're here, Carman, I suggest you hurry.)

Carman sighed, an annoyed expression on her face. "Thank you, Tobias."

(Hey, I'm just trying to help.) Tobias said defensively.

"Could one of you guys morph me and distract them?" Carman asked.

"Sure, I'll do it." I said. I placed my hand on Carman's, and she closed her eyes, going into the normal trance. I morphed her easily, and ran downstairs.

There were two adults and five kids. The oldest was an eighteen-year-old girl, Laura, I think. Then there was sixteen-year-old Shay, fifteen-year-old Joseph, thirteen-year-old Brent, and ten-year-old Kelsie.

According to Tobias, who had quickly briefed me on the way downstairs.

Mrs. Harris looked around, then looked at me, scowling. I shrunk back a little, trying not to look disgusted. She was ugly enough without the scowl, but with it she was just downright _freaky_. Freakier than a Taxxon halfway into cockroach morph.

Yeah, it was _that_ freaky.

"Ditching school. I'm not surprised, this is _you_ after all." She looked around some more. "Ugh, what have you been _doing_ this whole time?"

"Certainly not her chores, that's for sure." Brent said. His tone was equally disapproving.

Kelsie stomped a foot. "I can't have a party in this place, momma! It's _filthy_! Where are my friends supposed to put their sleeping bags? Where are my presents gonna go? Where is _she_ gonna go?"

They all looked at me with distaste.

Shay's eyes went wide. "_Where_ did you get that?"

"What?" I asked innocently.

Shay rolled her eyes. "That outfit, dumbo."

"Stole it, probably." Joseph grumbled.

Stole it? _Stole_ it?!

That's _it_. There's going to be a bear mauling in the near future.

"Look at that, she's silent. She_ did_ steal it." Brent said.

"Go take it off." Shay demanded.

"Huh?" I asked. I cocked an eyebrow. I couldn't keep the anger out of my voice.

"Take it off. It's mine."

"Yours?"

Shay glared. "Yes _mine_. Now take it off before I get ticked."

I wasn't sure what to do. I wanted to morph grizzly upside their butts, or at _least_ yell my guts out. But I was trying to buy time for Carman, which meant I couldn't get them angry.

"Okay." I said quietly. I went upstairs, shutting Carman's door behind me.

"Apparently my outfit now belongs to Shay." I said. My expression must have shown distaste, because Carman turned to me.

"Now you see why I have to leave." She said. She tossed me a pair of ratty jeans and an old white t-shirt with a faded picture of Pooh Bear on it. "Here."

I quickly slipped on Carman's clothes over my morphing suit, and Cady stuck my clothes in her backpack.

As I was doing so, Carman moved the tattered rug off her floor and pulled up a squeaky piece of floorboard to reveal the original wood floor.

She reached her hand straight through it, tapping something on the bottom of the floorboard next to her. Then the old wood floor disappeared to reveal an odd-looking lock, with some odd symbols.

Carman placed a finger on a small dent, and the symbols began to glow. She touched the symbols in a certain order, and the top slid to the side.

I purposely took time tying Carman's ratty tennis shoes to watch.

She pulled out a small palm-pilot-like object, placing it carefully in her bag. Next came a patch of blue fur tied together by a lime green ribbon, then another patch of fur, this time it was more of a purple, but it still had the lime green ribbon tied around it. She tucked these into a small pocket inside her bag, and pulled out a tattered blanket. She laid it out on the floor, then took out the last object.

A blue cube.

She sat the cube in the middle of the blanket, carefully wrapping it in the blanket. She sat the cube in the bag, zipping it up. She sat back on her knees. "Go Rachel, then make some excuse to get out of the house."

I nodded, then headed downstairs again.

"Where is it?"

"Oh, the outfit? I put it in your closet."

"Everything? Shoes, jewelry, hairclip?"

I nodded. "Yes."

Shay nodded harshly. "Good."

"You." Mr. Harris came up to me from another room. "Go to the store and get some ice cream for Kelsie's guests."

"Chocolate mudslide. No off brands." Kelsie demanded.

"Okay." I said. I left the house, following the red-tailed hawk that was flying some distance ahead of me. I ended up in a nice housing division, and watched as Tobias flew through an open window. I entered the house, finding it nice and decorated well.

I followed the voices upstairs to a room I knew as Kat's bedroom. Everyone was in there; Tobias was perched on the dresser, and Ax was in harrier morph, perched on the desk.

I demorphed, not bothering to change my clothes again. I sat down on the bed in between Kat and Cady.

"Let's take a bus down to Clear Creek, then we can take turns carrying the bag to the valley." Cassie said.

"Ax can carry the lockbox in his natural form, Tobias can guide us to the valley, and the rest of us can find a fast morph." Carman said. "I have a black bear morph, I can carry the bag-"

"No. Gorilla is better." Aly shook her head.

Audrey cocked an eyebrow. "You have a gorilla morph?"

Aly rolled her eyes. "I wanted to try it out. Marco went panther in my place."

"I'll go cheetah, Rachel, Cassie, and Audrey can go wolf, Cady can go hyena, and Kat..." Carman thought about this a minute.

"I can go horse and Kat can ride on me." Cassie said with a shrug.

"I must warn you, I'm not too good of a rider." Kat said.

"It's all right, I can guide you." Cassie said.

"All right then, let's go." Cady stood up.

(You're forgetting the lockbox. Where are you supposed to hide it on the bus?) Tobias asked.

Audrey grabbed it and stuck it in her backpack. "There. Problem solved."

"All right, let's go before the Harris' decide I've been gone too long." Carman said.

As everyone left the room, I held Carman back.

"How did you do it all these years? I could barely stand twenty minutes."

"I probably I have more patience than you." Carman said with a laugh. "But it took some effort, I must admit. Andalites don't particularly like being told they're inferior."

"I guess you've got that Andalite arrogance, huh?" I asked.

Carman merely walked out of the room without a word.

I wasn't surprised, Andalites don't like being called arrogant earlier.


	4. Marco

**Faith: WE'RE BACK!!  
Star: Finally...  
Faith: But we have bad news. Sadly, we're not as into Animorphs as we used to be, so it's getting harder and harder to write.  
Star: Yup... And then we're gonna take time out and write some stuff for the actual Agents story.  
Faith: So yeah, it might be a while before the next chapter gets up.  
Both: READ! REVIEW! ENJOY! TELL US TO GET RE-INTO ANIMORPHS! YOU KNOW YOU LOVE US AND YOU'LL MISS US IF WE GO!**

My name is Marco. Marco the great, Marco the awesome, whichever. Or just plain Marco. That's what I get most of the time.

Seeing as how we haven't had a great Yeerk lecture yet... I'll leave it for Jake or Josh to do. I hate lectures.

"Gah, how long does it take to get from Oregon to here?" David whined. He's blonde, so he's... Well... Blonde. Very blonde. I'm just thankful he has brown eyes, rather than blue. Otherwise he'd be a typical stereotype.

"He must be going through Cady withdrawals." I stage whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. The others snickered. David just glared at me.

Okay, here's the deal. Jake, Josh, Alex, David, and I were waiting for the girls, Ax, and Tobias to show up in the Hork-Bajir valley. From there, we'd have a meeting, then go home. Well, Bird-boy, Ax-man, and David would have a new roomie: Carman. She'd apparently gotten sick of living the the high-and-mighty snobs that were her foster family, so she decided to move in with three guys.

I think we all questioned her sanity. Well, except for David, who really didn't understand because he was the reason of the questioning.

"David, relax." Josh spoke. Josh looks a lot like Superman: dark curly hair, steel blue eyes, leader complex. Hence the reason we call him Superman.

We were all waiting in the cabin that we had brought Cady and Alyssa when they had been injured. Josh was sitting in a chair, Alex was propped up on one of the cots, Jake was leaning beside the doorway, David was sitting on the other cot, and I was sitting against the wall on the floor beside Alex's cot. "They'll get here when they get here."

"But I'm bored." Came the reply.

"We all are." Alex answered. He looked at Jake and Josh as he continued. "Especially since _someone's_ got Super Smash Brothers Brawl to play. But no, _someone else_ had to go and call a meeting, so the first _someone_ couldn't play."

I stared at him. "You got Brawl?"

Alex nodded with a grin. "I got Brawl." Alex and I look a lot alike. Except he has green eyes, and his hair is a tad on the curly side.

Someone cleared their throat. "_You_ got Brawl?"

"Fine. _We_got Brawl." Alex relented as Alyssa walked in, followed by the other girls, an Andalite, and a teenage boy.

"Finally!" David exclaimed.

"What, did you miss us?" Rachel asked, grinning.

I grinned. "No. He only missed Cady." Then, I stage whispered again. "He's going through withdrawals."

"Awww, poor poor Davie..." Audrey teased as she sat down against the far wall with her backpack. She has brown hair and blue eyes.

"Hey, it's nice to know I was missed." Cady said with a grin as she sat next to her boyfriend. She has lighter brown hair, and gray eyes.

"Okay, let's get down to business." Jake said. "Tobias was here earlier today, and he found out that Bek, a young -"

"Hork-Bajir went missing." Aly finished. "We know." She has brown hair and brown eyes.

"What? How? I just told Jake - Oooh..." Tobias trailed off.

"Dude, we got books. We know your every move, mwuahahaha!" Alex cackled.

"Oooh... That's not the main point of the book." Kat remarked. She is our other blonde. She looks like Rachel, with her blonde hair and blue eyes. Then she looked at Tobias, whom had perched on the open window sill. "You're fixing to have a very _complicated_ problem."

"Maybe we should just tell him and save him the trouble..." Josh mused.

"Let's tell him about Aria and be done with it." Audrey said. "But nothing else."

"Okay." Josh nodded. "Wait... Has anyone even began looking for him yet?" He looked at Rachel.

"Uh... Yeah..." She answered.

"Look, Visser Three is going around in morph, pretending to be your cousin Aria." Aly said. "And that's the end of it."

"Well... Not the _end_, really. You still have to go see that DeGroot dude." Audrey added. "But still..."

"Who?"

"He's a lawyer dude."

"You need to go see him." Kat added.

"And keep your cover around 'Aria'." Carman continued. She is our one-of-a-kind hyper chick. She has black hair, which is almost always in two pigtails, and green eyes.

"Someone needs to go with him." Jake said. "Not everyone, just someone to go and help him keep his cover and all."

"I'll go." Kat offered.

"Okay, that'll work." Jake continued. "Now, back to Bek... He's apparently in the books, so you _must_ know where he is." He looked around at the Agents.

"Well, we know it was Frank's something, but seeing as how we don't have the books on us, we can't be sure." Aly said.

"Some stupid, crappy zoo..." Audrey muttered.

"But, seeing as how you got there by following Aria, we don't know where it is." Josh added.

"So, Tobias and Kat go see the DeGroot guy, and the rest of us look for Aria?" Cassie asked.

"Uh... Why don't we make our lives easier and just go get the book, find the name, and look it up on the internet?" Audrey suggested. "You guys _insist_on doing it the hard and complicated way, rather than just searching it on Google or whatever."

"You could save a lot of time by doing that." David added.

"Oh my word, he _actually_said something somewhat intelligent!" I cried.

"Finally, we've been waiting for the sarcastic comment for so long!" Alex wailed.

"And we put up with them... Why?" Rachel asked.

"Can we stick to business, _please_?" Josh asked.

"Aww, Superman's whining!" Aly giggled.

"How cute!" Audrey joined in.

"He has a point..." Jake remarked.

"As if we didn't already have enough leader people as it is. Then you freaks showed up." I said. "Oops, did I say that out loud?" I grinned.

"We're freaks." Aly nodded.

"And we're proud!" Audrey called out.

"Look, let's finish the meeting, _then_ you can go on about how freaky you are, okay?" Jake offered. "So, someone needs to get the address to Frank's place."

"Well, this book is kinda short. There's nothing much in it, aside from Tobias' musings and such. So... Which one was next?" Kat asked.

"Helmacrons!" Carman exclaimed. "Little freaky blue midgets!"

All the Agents groaned, except Cady. "No..."

(Helmacrons?) Ax finally spoke.

I started clapping. "Finally, you decided to speak."

"Hey, Ax, what're you doing in that corner?" Cassie asked.

(Nothing.) He quickly hid something behind his back.

"Ax..."

"He got the last Agents book." Tobias rolled his eyes. "And he hasn't put it down. At all. For _others_ to read."

"We barely got him to put it down in order to go with Tobias and the girls." David remarked.

"You know, I'm sure someone else is almost done. I'm almost halfway through with it." Rachel remarked.

"This is the third time he's read it."

"Ah. I can see how that would get annoying."

"You have _no_ idea."

Ax just stayed silent, pointedly turning his back to the group.

Jake shook his head, then looked at Tobias. "I've only got two chapters left. You can borrow mine when I get done."

"Can you answer me a question about the books, Jake?" Carman asked. "_They're_ being secretive about it. They'll look up at me, then look back down at the book, and it's getting annoying."

"Ooh..." Jake looked away. I decided to spare the Fearless Leader, who apparently wasn't so 'fearless'.

"You died a few books back."

Carman blinked, then nodded. "Oooh..."

"That's it?" David looked at her. "You _died_, and all you say is 'oooh...'?"

She thought for a moment, then nodded.

Tobias looked at David. "And she's gonna be living with us from now on."

David visibly shivered. Carman just giggled.


End file.
